Big Salmon Lake i imagine death so much, it feels more like a memory

No. It wasn't quick enough. Even as Verx felt himself come down upon the monster, he felt jaws between his legs, felt teeth, rake, tear, seize --

Oh, Dragomir, he thought ruefully, as the arterial hemorrhage began.

But Vercingetorix was a fighter, and he'd fight until the end and beyond that, if allowed. He twisted and kicked and used the last of his earthly seconds to the fullest. He opened his mouth wide and pushed his head downward, toward that scrawny neck -- he needed to grab it, to snap it --

There were black spots in his vision, muddying further the image of flailing legs and bloodied water. With the final vestiges of his strength, he closed his mighty jaws. Only the sharp crack of severed vertebrae, a sound he'd heard many times before in much different circumstances, would tell him if he was successful.